Day 4
Manifestation of gratitude
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Welcome to Day 4 of Be Quranic. Insha Allah today we will continue exploring the first half of the second aya of Surah al-Fatihah. Yesterday we learned that Alhamdulillah is the key to our happiness in this world and the hereafter. Alhamdulillah is the essence of gratitude. And psychology tells us that people who are grateful are happier and healthier. And to be truly grateful, we need to belief in God as the three components of gratitude are 1) the beneficiary, who is the receiving, 2) the benefit, from 3) the benefactor that gives the benefit to the beneficiary.
You can only be grateful to the major things in life, things that are not material, like life itself, health, good parents, good children, only if you belief in God. Otherwise you'd take it for granted or a a streak of luck and there is no one to thank for those blessings.
And as Muslims we are blessed by the fact that we know who our God is. We know who to thank for all blessings in life. And that knowledge alone, is the greatest blessing of all. Our deen and our iman are two of the biggest blessings. This is the infinite loop of gratitude of a Muslim - we are grateful for the blessings given to us by Allah, which would then require us to to be grateful for the opportunity express our gratitude to Allah. The knowledge and ability to be grateful is a blessing that we should be grateful for.
Gratitude in Islam is not just a feeling in the heart. It starts in the heart by acknowledging and thanking Allah. In the Quran, Allah commanded Prophet Daud and his family to do Shukr - do gratitude. But how does one do gratitude?
The expression of gratitude is obedience towards Allah. Shaping our actions to seek Allah's pleasure. There are two modes of obeying Allahs' commands. You can either obey Him out of Sabr or patience; doing something because you have to, or you can obey Him out of Shukr or gratitude; not because you have to, but because you get to.
Of all the billions of humans on earth, Allah has selected us to be the ones that get to know Him, and get to express our gratitude towards Him. We should feel honoured to be selected and given the opportunity to truly be a servant of the Almighty. Imagine if you get a Letter of Offer to work directly under the Prime Minister, President or King? How honoured would you feel. We are now talking about serving the King of all Kings, the Creator of Heavens and Earth and everything in between. How great is that honour?
So our quest today is not something that we do, but a shift of mindset. All the ibadah that we do, should not be viewed as a burden, but rather an honour. Worship Allah with gratitude. Be happy that we get a direct audience to the Lord of the Universe through our solah. Not once a year. Not once a day, but at least 5 times a day. We get to talk to Him and He listens to all our complains and requests.
The next time we read Quran, don't just read it because we have to. Or because we want to great reward — which we do, but do it because we are reading a direct message from beyond the heavens from our Creator to tell us how to lead our best lives and achieve success in this world and the hereafter. Out of the billions of humans on earth, we are the minority that God selected to read His words. Be grateful for that. The shift of mindset is from we HAVE to do it to we GET to do it.
Alhamdulillah...